[Dying Breed]
Plot:Four people conducting field research into the Tasmanian tiger who stumble across the descendants of a cannibal tribe.

Cast:Leigh Whannell, Nathan Phillips, Melanie Valejo, Mirrah Foulkes.

My Thoughts:Are they kidding with this stuff?

Review:"Dying Breed" was one of the few movies which people had faith in for this years Horrorfest event. Me? Well, it's horrorfest. I mean how confident can you be really? Their batting average isn't really that high with "8 films to die for", which has pretty much become..."eight films which make you feel like you wanna die after you've watched them." Luckily, I didn't put too much stock into this one. Okay, maybe I put a significant amount of stock into it, but a ton? Nah.

The film does boast some good talent though. Nathan Phillips (Snakes On A Plane), and Leigh Whannell, everyone knows from "Saw". The movie has a group of young people heading to the land down under to hopefully get a glimpse of a rare tasmanian tiger. What they find however is more horrible and shocking than you can ever imagine. Because in this neck of the woods, it's not the tigers you need to worry about, but the...backwoods cannibals!

That's right horror fans, this is another one of those kooky, crazy, rural movies where flesh-craving hillbilly types are looking for a snack, and these outsiders are on the menu baby! Woohoo! Not! The title of this movie may be "Dying Breed", but these types of movies are certainly a growing breed. In fact, the fuckers are spreading like the plague. Everytime a good idea comes along, it's ruined by "the easy way out". I would've appreciated something like a dark evil, or some supernatural entity that stalks the backwoods of Tasmania, but no....we get aussie hicks who want to eat the men of the group, and save the one female of the explorer group for some good old-fashioned breeding.

Ala "The Hills Have Eyes 2", and "Wrong Turn", or...what was gonna occur in "Wrong Turn" to Jessie before Chris showed up. Whew! That was a close one eh? But at any rate, this is the sole purpose of "Dying Breed". Set up some good-looking twenty-somethings to die at the hands of demented rednecks. Only this takes place in the woods of Tasmania, and the hicks have aussie accents. Big dif huh? If you're keeping score at home. the aussies have always been behind on this stuff. If you remember way back in 2000, they made "Cut".

Which was supposed to be a slasher rival to our "Scream". Although the film was 4 years late (Scream was released in 1996), it was made nonetheless. Now, it seems the aussies wanted their own version of "Wrong Turn". Yet again, they're late...very late in fact. "Wrong Turn" was released in 2003! Another problem with this movie is the characters all fall into place. Nothing original here. The explorers are always arguing over meaningless shit, the locals of Tasmania are up to no good and are portrayed as weird, demented, and crazy.

There's the obligatory creepy kid who espouses creepy nursery rhymes, and then there's the naive behavior by the protagonists. In one scene, they're making fun of the locals for being inbred wackjob's, yet in a scene soon after...since they can't find their way around the area on their own, they purchase a map from these "inbred wackjob's". Talk about a contradiction. And also, if you suspect the locals are crazy hillbillies with bad intentions, why on earth would you buy a map from them?

A map, being the one thing that could lead you to a good trip, or an untimely demise depending on what sort of mood the map-maker is in. See where I'm going with this? To top it all off, the film offers no real storyline worth mentioning, no real action up until the final 20 minutes, and other than one stomach-turning scene where a female corpse is hanging from a tree, there's nothing shocking or noteworthy about this film. Oh, and watch for the twist ending which attempts to rip off the 2007 alligator flick "Primeval". "Dying Breed" is nothing new, instead, it's something old, borrowed, and boring.

Positives:The end credits rolling.

Negatives:To sum it up simply, it's like america's hundreds of psycho-billy movies, only with australians.

Overall:Half a star out of four.





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